Collagen ultrastructural symmetry and its malignant alterations in human breast cancer revealed by polarization‐resolved second‐harmonic generation microscopy
Raffaella Mercatelli, Tiziana Triulzi, Francesco S. Pavone, Rosaria Orlandi, Riccardo Cicchi
Abstract
Several specific alterations of the extracellular matrix can be considered a distinctive hallmark of cancer. In particular, a different morphology of the collagen scaffold is frequently found within the peritumoural environment. In this study, we report about a significant difference in the ultrastructural organization of collagen at the supra-molecular level between the perilesional scaffold and the tumour area in human breast carcinoma samples. In particular, we demonstrated that polarization-resolved second-harmonic generation (P-SHG) microscopy is able to link the altered collagen architecture at the ultrastructural level found in perilesional tissue with a different organization of collagen fibrils at the molecular level.